


But As Long as You Love Me So

by Draco_sollicitus



Series: 25 Days of Damerey [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Damerey December, F/M, Fake Dating, Fluff, Half of this is from tumblr, Lawyer Poe, Modern AU, Post-Break Up, Rey Solo, flangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 00:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17011752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: After a break up that came seemingly out of the blue, Poe Dameron agrees to attend Christmas Eve dinner with his ex-girlfriend, so Rey doesn't have to explain to her parents that they're no longer a couple.What could go wrong?





	But As Long as You Love Me So

**Author's Note:**

> Back at Thanksgiving, half of this was posted to tumblr for the prompt:  
> "you’re pretending we’re still together because my relatives will disprove of the break up so you’re being all sweet it’s reminding me of why i fell in love with you in the first place""
> 
>  
> 
> Day 14 of Damerey December

After months of working non-stop with no breaks, Poe found himself at a bit of a loss of what to do on his day off.

He got up from his very empty, very new bed and stretched, his toes pressing against the cold hardwood floor. Next, he shuffled to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, and then he took out his personal laptop and checked the news, his fantasy football rankings, and sent a few emails, mostly to Kes (in response to strange memes that his father had found on the internet).

Poe rubbed a hand over his face and checked the time. 8:02. He’d managed to burn a whole hour, and this was already about three hours later than he normally left the apartment. He tapped his fingers on the table and stood, shaking his head. 

Ten days ago, this wouldn’t have been so difficult. He might have used his phone for something other than scrolling through twitter, might have gone for a walk, or gone to brunch. But, Poe looked at the miserably empty seat across from him in the breakfast nook and cleared his throat, willing himself not to cry. 

He rubbed the rough stubble dotting his jaw and stared out the window. Honestly, he felt stupid sitting in this nice apartment that he’d picked out when he thought there’d be someone living here with him; and, eventually, more than one someones, if everything had gone according to plan. The den would have converted to a nursery one day, and -

No, he was definitely crying.

Poe wiped his eyes and rubbed his nose against his forearm before reaching for a napkin to clean himself up. “Pathetic,” he muttered. “Completely pathetic.” 

He stood to clear his mug and wipe down the coffee machine, and while he was elbow deep in suds, he let himself get lost in thought. There was an obnoxiously colored space above the sink, where the plants had always blocked the sunlight from touching the wall and fading the paint - a rectangle that screamed  _ someone used to love you,  _ \- and Poe glared at it, thinking that maybe he should stop by Lowes later and pick up a paint sample to re-do the backsplash. 

Shutting the water off, he dried his hands and then traced the rectangle longingly, remembering the bristle and vivacity of the rosemary, thyme, and cilantro that used to fill the pots that had been stationed here for so long. 

He should have known when she asked to move out. That had been the bell tolling for their relationship - but somehow, he’d been just busy enough at the firm to not fight her, or really, fight for her, when the boxes had shown up, and then he’d been just distracted enough to not let himself worry too much that she sounded so distant, so detached on the phone (his own answers and questioned limited to a few syllables), and then she was just...gone. A little over a week after the herbs vanished from the kitchen, and the old mattress vanished from the bedroom, and the bike vanished from the patio, Rey was gone, and everything that had been  _ theirs  _ became  _ his,  _ including this yawning space in his chest where his heart used to be.

In all honesty, Poe mused heading back to his chair, it had been an unpleasant but necessary wake-up call. He’d been going toe-to-toe with the First Order for months, pulling twelve to fifteen hours at the office each day, and he hadn’t really felt much of anything in a long time. But Rey leaving had ripped open the things he’d holed up, and he’d used that agony to get through the final stages of the trial, and they’d  _ won.  _ A predatory corporation brought to task.

At the cost of his personal life. 

But Rey had smiled and kissed him and laid next to him each night just the same as always - right up until the day she’d left - and he’d been putting on a brave face while home, never letting slip to her that he was sliding so far into his work-induced anxiety and depression that he didn’t see a way out. They’d both acted normal, the kind of normal that had allowed them to operate so successfully as a couple for so long: so he was still retracing his steps and figuring out what had gone wrong.

He glared at the fireplace that would have had two stockings hanging on it this time last year, and now had a whopping zero (he’d just finished the case against FO a few days ago, and he certainly wasn’t feeling the spirit of the season), and headed back to the table to snag his laptop and his phone.

_ 3 Minutes Ago: One Missed Call. _

Poe swiped the screen and then grabbed his phone abruptly, staggering into his seat with wide eyes.  _ One Missed Call - From Rey Solo. _

He’d changed it from Sunshine right after she’d ended things officially, seven days, twenty hours, and forty minutes ago.

Without thinking, he called her back. 

It rang twice, and then a familiar voice filled the connection, and Poe felt his body relax (Funny that he hadn’t even noticed the tension before). “Hello?”

“Hey. It’s Poe.” She definitely would know that, thanks to the decades old invention of Caller ID.

“Yeah, hi.” Rey laughed awkwardly, but Poe leaned into the sound, his eyes closing as he tried to place the expression that would match it.  _ Delicate hand on the side of a long neck, head tilted down and to the side, nose scrunched up but just barely, not the way it would when she was actually, genuinely happy.  _ “How are you?”

“Great! How are you?” Poe winced at how faux-friendly his voice sounded, but if he’d gone for a genuine emotion, it would have been tentatively hopeful but still preemptively heartbroken. He was also worried  _ Please, I love you,  _ would slip out.

He still kicked himself for not telling her one more time when she’d left him; he still kicked himself for just helping her carry her boxes down to the moving van and taking her key with a nod and a kind  _ I understand  _ (even though he couldn’t have understood less why she was leaving and taking half of his heart, all of his heart, with her).

“I’m fine. Been better.” She did sound tired, and a little sad, and Poe’s chest ached with the agony of his hope. “Look - oh, crap. You’re not working, are you?” 

Poe shook his head and then remembered she couldn’t hear him. He stood and started to pace the floor of what used to be their kitchen, his fingers trailing along the countertops she used to perch on while he cooked them breakfast. He wondered distantly when the last time he cooked her breakfast had been - eight months ago? Nine? 

“Not working. I have the day off.”

“Really?” Her incredulity made him smile. “They let you have one?"

“Yeah, well. Holdo’s orders.” Ami had said she would tie him down to his armchair herself if he didn’t take a few days off around Christmas. 

“Gotcha.” There was an awkward, pregnant pause, and then Rey cleared her throat. “I have to ask you something. But I need you to know, up front: you can totally say no. No hard feelings.”

“...Okay.”

“Well, um, do you remember how we said we’d visit my parents for Christmas Eve?”

“I remember.” That had been a very un-fun phone call to Kes that he’d made a few days ago, when he snapped out of his dumped-by-the-love-of-his-life and crushed-by-work haze long enough to call his dad and tell him the change of plans. He’d cried for about two hours over the phone.

“So, uh...God, I feel like an ass even asking. But...well, my parents love you.”

_ Hell yeah, they do,  _ he would have laughed not even two weeks ago. But, he stayed quiet while Rey continued. 

“And they’re … well, they’re under the impression that you’re still going?”

“So you want me to help explain that I’m not?” Poe didn’t really look forward to calling Leia Organa-Solo to tell her that he’d been dumped by her pride and joy. He had no decent answer prepared for the formidable woman who would doubtlessly ask him what he’d done to screw this up. 

“No...not exactly.” Poe stared at the microwave over his stove range and waited for Rey to finish the thought that he was starting to piece together for himself. “...I was hoping that you’d...you know…”

“Don’t say it.” Poe tipped his head back and fought the urge to groan (and lost).

“You can say no.” Rey’s voice got squeaky the way it only did when she was incredibly anxious or upset. Honestly, she was probably both. As much as Rey loved her mother, Poe knew she was terribly afraid of disappointing her, and probably was afraid of letting Leia down by not being ‘stable’ and ‘gainfully dating someone’ at Christmastime. “It’s just...they like you so much, and I’ll drive, and it won’t be weird, and I won’t make it weird, and -”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“I’ll do it.” Poe literally kicked himself and rolled his eyes heavenward, mouthing  _ Why? Why me?  _ at God. 

“Really? Oh my God, thank you!”

“Don’t thank me yet.”  _ No, just get back together with me and tell me you love me again.  _ Poe found the needy little voice inside of him that said that and tried to cram it down into a little box, fully intending on crushing it later. “Just...pick me up at...the apartment on your way to dinner.”

She thanked him profusely a few dozen times more, and after Poe hung up, he chucked his phone onto the couch and tugged on his curls, screaming silently before going to pick out the outfit that screamed “Hello I am Heartbroken and Pathetic, Please Don’t Notice That Your Daughter Doesn’t Love Me Anymore” the least.

**

“Rey, could you pass the potatoes, please?” 

Rey didn’t quite hear Leia’s question, too busy sneaking glances across the table at Poe, despite swearing she’d be normal around him. 

“Rey?” She startled and looked down the table at her mother, who was eyeing the fingerling potatoes with an arched eyebrow. 

“Oh, uh, yeah.” Rey shook herself and grabbed the bowl to pass down. She looked over guiltily at the object of her focus.

Poe smiled brightly at her, completely unaware that she’d been studying him to the point where everything else had faded away; he smiled at her, and then he went back to engaging her nephew in conversation. Bail Solo babbled happily at Poe, waving his spoon around demonstrably, and Poe nodded every so often and asked him another question. 

“I can’t believe they said that to you!” Poe made an indignant face. “And then what did you say?”

“Ba ba trah fbbbt,” Bail answered. Poe nodded and hummed in understanding and took the spoon to try and slot some mashed sweet potatoes into Bail’s mouth. The baby obliged, and Poe managed to get most of it in. When some of it smeared across Bail’s chubby cheeks, Poe grabbed a soft napkin and wiped his face delicately, ticking Bail under the chin affectionately.

“Careful, Rey. Everyone can tell what you’re thinking,” her brother leaned over and whispered in her ear. Rey froze and looked up at Ben, who was smirking at her.  _ Does he know? “ _ Any chance you’re thinking about tiny babies with curly hair?”

“No,” Rey said indignantly, shoving her massive brother on the arm. Ben didn’t even budge, the jackass. “That’s not all girls can think about, you know.”

What she didn’t say was that  _ I’m thinking about how I made the biggest mistake of my life, and I broke up with my sweet, perfect boyfriend because he was at work all the time, and I never got to see him, and I was tired of falling asleep alone and waking up alone, and now I’m just always alone, so I’m not sure what I accomplished. _

Ben shrugged and went back to his turkey after muttering an apology, and he addressed Poe.

“So, how was your last case, Dameron? Did it finally wrap up?”

Rey frowned - how did Ben know about Poe’s case? 

“Three days ago, yeah.” Poe smiled, and it looked tired. “It, uh, it was a doozy. I mean, I know I should be happy because we won the suit against those bastards, but I don’t think I’ve ever worked that much in my entire life.”

“You were pulling, what, 90 hour weeks at one point?” Kaydel asked from the other side of Bail.

“For a while, yeah.” Poe shot Rey an unreadable look, and she was unable to maintain eye contact with him, the misery too powerful.

“Ho, boy.” Han reached over and ruffled Rey’s hair, and she swatted at him. “Poor Rey. I remember all too well what it’s like to have to wait for someone to come home when they’re working like that.”

“Oh, we worked it out.” Leia waved her hand at her husband and smiled. “It helped to know I was coming home to my loving husband.”

Rey felt suddenly very sick, and she threw her napkin on the table. “I need to go,” she muttered, shoving her chair out from the table. “Excuse me.”

Breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, the way her therapist had taught her, Rey nearly sprinted from the room. The second she got to the dark hallway, she leaned up against the wall and closed her eyes, tears forming.  _ Did everyone know? Was that why Ben brought the case up?  _

It was great that Poe had won - Rey hadn’t even known he had won, which made her feel like an ass. It was the biggest case of Poe’s career, taking on the First Order, and what kind of person was she, that she hadn’t even followed up to find out how it had gone? How the case that had broken them up had gone? Ben clearly cared enough to check in - they must have been texting, Rey realized bleakly, texting about the case, as Ben was another lawyer, only one year behind Poe at Harvard, which was how Rey had met him.

_ They’d been texting  _ \- had Poe let slip in a text that Rey had dumped him unceremoniously? Was this whole farce a failure from the start?

Was Poe in there even now, telling everyone that Rey had sprinted from the room because she couldn’t handle the growing distance between them, so she’d abruptly ended things - things being their two year relationship - a few weeks back, but then panicked at the thought of Christmas without her trusty boyfriend, the one her parents loved? 

The door to the dining room swung open, and laughter spilled out in the hall with light, but it shut quickly. “Hey, I’m sorry about that.” It was Poe because of course it was. “I didn’t think they’d…”

“Don’t.” Rey shuddered and closed her eyes. “Don’t be so…”

“Annoying?” Poe leaned up against the wall next to her. 

“Perfect.” Rey wrapped her arms around her middle and refused to look at him, even though she could feel his warmth spilling over into her space, the undeniable presence that was the man she was still in love with. “Don’t be so perfect. This is hard enough.”

“Rey, I-” Poe cleared his throat and stopped himself. “Okay. I won’t…do whatever I was doing.”

“It’s not about doing.” Rey covered her face with her hands. “It’s about being.”

Poe snorted derisively, and Rey peeked over at him. “Fine.”

She opened her mouth to apologize, but Poe shook his head and pushed off from the wall to glare at her. “Fine, but if you could just  _ tell  _ me what to do, that would be great. Because I’m trying my best over here, I really am. You tell me you need space, I help you move out. You tell me it’s over, I try to move on. But then, eight days later, you tell me you need me to be your date at Christmas so your family doesn’t catch wind of our break up - although why you’d hide it from them is beyond me - I show up with a bottle of wine and a smile. So just tell me what part of this I’m doing wrong, and I’ll fix it, because God, Rey, I’m just trying to make you happy.” 

He dragged his hands through his hair, and Rey stared at him, shocked. This was the most upset he’d ever been with her, and she guessed that it made sense. “It’s just…I’m not sure why I’m doing this. It’s not like I can make you love me again.”

“I do.” It was out before she could stop it, and Rey winced miserably. 

“You know why I’m doing this?” Poe clarified, but Rey shook her head and stood up straight as well, forcing herself to lower her arms. 

“No. I mean, I have no idea why you’d do this, other than, you’re perfect, and sweet, and seeing you in there is a massive reminder of why I made the biggest mistake of my life.” Rey buried her face in her hands for a second but then stood tall. “I love you.” She couldn’t really see Poe in the dim lighting, but she could see he was shocked. “I still love you. Never stopped. I just…I thought you were taking on more hours because you didn’t want to be home. And my parents are joking about it now, but they nearly divorced like, ten times while we were growing up because my mom took on so many hours at the firm. The more they fought, the more she worked.”

Rey wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I didn’t want that for us. Didn’t know what else to do. So, I panicked.”

“I thought it might be that.” Poe blew a breath out and rubbed his temples. “I was just so tired from prepping for court that I…I didn’t really have the energy to beg you not to leave. That was my biggest regret.”

“And here we are,” Rey spread her hands out ironically. “Probably making a few more regrets.”

“Probably.” Poe stepped in closer to her, and Rey mirrored the movement. She was only human, after all. “So uh,” he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his old comforting gesture, “You still love me, huh?”

“Knew you’d focus on that.” Rey swatted at his arm half-heartedly, and Poe smiled, leaving his hand in place. 

“Can I kiss you?” Her heart clenched at his soft question - they’d grown so used to each other’s tells that Poe hadn’t felt the need to ask to kiss her, other than on rare occasions, for over a year. “Please? Because I’m going out of my mind here, sweetheart.”

“Yeah.” Rey nodded quickly and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “I’d like that.”

He leaned in slowly, giving her time to back out, clearly, but Rey ducked in quickly and pressed her lips against his. It felt mildly victorious, and the agonizing hole in the bottom of her chest shrunk with shocking rapidity as they kissed in the dark hallway. Poe’s hands framed her face, and Rey placed hers on his chest, and it was just as seamless as it had ever been, no awkward nose bumping, no teeth clacking, just Poe and his soft, warm mouth, and his tongue  tracing a delicate pattern on her bottom lip, slipping into her mouth every now and then to make her shiver.

The door opened behind them, and Rey pulled away slightly, but Poe shook his head and pulled her back in, kissing her more soundly.

“Found them!” Ben bellowed. “You were right, Dad, they came out here to make out!” 

“Knew it!” Han laughed, and Rey snorted, but continued to kiss Poe.

“You kids be safe,” Ben teased, and the door shut behind him as he ducked back into the dining room. 

Rey giggled, and Poe did too, pulling away to rest his forehead on hers. “I love you,” he said softly. “I don’t ever want to lose you again. I can - I can quit the firm, if I need to, I’ll do whatever it takes-”

“No.” Rey kissed his lips sweetly, briefly, and shook her head. “No, I don’t need you to do that for me. Your career is important. I’ll just need to adjust.” Poe was clearly going to argue with it - he was a professional arguer, after all, but Rey wrapped her arms around him to silence him, pressing her nose into his neck. “I love you,” she whispered, and while the kiss had been lovely, it was being held by Poe that felt like home. “I missed you so much.”

“I know, Sunshine.” Poe stroked his hand down her back, leaving his palm flat against the base of her spine to pull her in closer. “Trust me, I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy "Day 14" (shhh just go with it)
> 
> I think that means I"ll have to do 15 and 16 tomorrow. 
> 
> Oops.


End file.
